


The Ghosts of those We Think We've Failed

by supernovainparadise



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Aaron Hotchner, Each chapter can technically be read on it's own, Eventual Romance, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description, Haunting, Hurt Some Comfort, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Minor Character Death, Murder, Song fic, Southern Aaron Hotchner, Strangulation, can be read as slash or not, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:00:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29315964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernovainparadise/pseuds/supernovainparadise
Summary: A young man, with long dirty blond hair, arms crossed, leaning against the door frame. His clothes, usually so well-tended, are covered in dirt, and if Aaron squints, he thinks he sees bruising around his neck. But he blinks, and Spencer's ghost is gone.After Spencer Reid's tragic death, the team begins to see him in unlikely places as they work to get over the loss of their youngest teammate, and maybe learn a little about themselves in the process.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Sean Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm happy to add more chapters if you guys would like! Please let me know!

He has the nightmare infrequently, now. Maybe once or twice a year. But it hasn't changed, and he's not sure it ever will. There's nothing he can do to change that night, running barefoot through the orchard, climbing the tallest tree, and waiting for the old bastard to pass beneath him and leave.

Then the shouting, and the smell of iron mixing with rotting fruit. A bat takes flight near his head, and Aaron watches it take off into the hot Georgia night, wishing he could spread wings and fly away. He knows he can barely get out of the tree, his leg shattered, and as the adrenaline wears off the pain sets in. All he can do as his mother screams into the sky is close his eyes and pray to God she dies soon, that she dies quicker. That his father doesn't hurt Sean, doesn't think to look for him. He desperately holds in sobs as tears track down his dirty face. He hopes that Sean has the good sense to pick up the phone, to call the cops.

His mother's screams end just as the sun begins to come up over the horizon. He hears his father plod back to the house and finally risks climbing down.

He finds Sean hiding in the orchard too, and Aaron takes his hand and begins to limp towards the neighbor's house.

This is where he usually wakes, and every time he wakes, he thinks that for a split second he sees the ghost of Luanne Hotchner standing in the corner of the room But this time, when he wakes in a cold sweat, eyes darting to look at the alarm clock, he sees a different ghost in the corner. A young man, with long dirty blond hair, arms crossed, leaning against the door frame. His clothes, usually so well-tended, are covered in dirt, and if Aaron squints, he thinks he sees bruising around his neck. But he blinks, and Spencer's ghost is gone.

All Aaron can think, staring at the corner with dread building in his chest, is that Spencer can't be dead. After all, he just saw him yesterday...

Aaron looks at the clock again and sighs, running his hand over his face. It's well before he needs to be into work, but he has nothing better to do, so he gets up, gets dressed, and heads out for the day. Unsurprisingly, as he walks into the BAU, nobody else is there yet. So Aaron shakes off that foreboding feeling from his vision (hallucination?) this morning and gets to work. As the morning begins to wear on, the rest of the team trickles in. Morgan first, then JJ, then Emily, then Garcia, and then Rossi. As they come in and sit at their desks or get a cup of coffee, Aaron finds himself watching the door for Spencer. But the clock ticks and time passes, and it's eleven o'clock and Dr. Reid still isn't there. Aaron sends him a quick text asking if everything's alright, then turns back to his computer, trying desperately to ignore the dread building up inside him.

By noon, almost everyone is worried. Every single agent keeps sending agitated looks towards his desk, and all of them have called at least once and texted multiple times. Hotch is pretty sure he's just been typing the same word over and over again, and he's so lost in his own thoughts and worries and the fear and anxiety in his chest that he jumps about a mile when Anderson knocks softly on the doorframe.

Hotch sighs in relief, glad it's just the young desk agent. "Agent Anderson, what can I do for you?"

Hotch look sup at him and feels his heart sink at the look of mixed horror and the way his hands are shaking. "Um, there's, uh, something you need to see sir. Immediately." Hotch stands, and Anderson shoves a piece of paper in his hands before muttering _"oh god I'm going to-"_ and sprinting towards the bathroom.

Hotch frowns at the paper, which contains only an address and the words _"Get here NOW. Bring the team.- Strauss."_

The drive took a little less than an hour and put them in an empty field about thirty miles north of Richmond. There were only two FBI cars present, and a tent set up a little ways away. A couple of agents stood nearby a shallow hole in the ground, and Strauss paced on the asphalt. The expression on her face was grim, and there was not even the slightest hint of relief when she saw Hotch and his team approach. In fact, Aaron was pretty sure that her expression only got darker.

"Wouldn't it have been easier to send a text?" Hotch asked, feeling his throat grow tight.

Strauss merely shakes her head. "I didn't' want this getting out in any way, shape, or form. Safer to send word of mouth. Besides, service is shoddy out here."

"What's going on out here, exactly?" Rossi asks, crossing his arms.

Strauss pauses for a moment before looking out at the team. They're silent, anxious, as they wait for her response. Finally, Erin asks, "have any of you heard from Dr. Reid after leaving work last night?"

The team exchanges odd looks before Emily says, "the last I heard was him declining coming over to watch a movie. Said he was going to spend the evening with his bo-- significant other."

If Strauss is at all perturbed by the idea of Spencer dating another man, it doesn't show. "And nobody else saw or heard from him?" A shake of heads, and confused looks, all while Hotch feels his heart sink to his shoes. 

Finally, Strauss sighs and runs a hand through her hair. "I didn't just bring you all here to discuss Dr. Reid's pastimes." _No..._ "I wish I had. That would be much easier." _Please God no..._ "And given your occupations, I'd imagine you all probably know what I'm going to say." _It was just a dream- It wasn't real-_ "But we've found Spencer Reid's body. The farmer who owns these lands called the police, and they found his badge on him. A simple identification has us certain that it's him, though only because his... remains were in such good shape. I'm... so sorry."

Aaron... isn't sure what happens after that. The rest of the day is blacked out of his memory, and the week passes by like a blur. They drag Spencer's boyfriend in for questioning and whittle out the truth little by little, but no matter what new evidence they find, what the man says in the interrogation room, it does not change the fact that Reid's desk is empty, that his body is lying six feet under, with strangulation marks around his neck, and that Hotch has a new nightmare in his repertoire. 

He didn't think it got any worse than the dream about his mom's death, but it does, because this time he's just an observer. Forced to watch and do nothing at all.

Spencer steps out of the bathroom hair still wet from his shower. It's late, just before midnight, and the room is empty apart from him. He's already dressed in a pair of simple jeans, an old t-shirt, and a soft cardigan. His contacts are out, leaving him in his glasses, and he is locking his gun safe when the door to the bedroom opens. At first, he seems surprised, but his expression melts into a smile as he steps forward to embrace his lover. And Hotch wants to scream at him to get away, to run, to do anything but go willingly into those sadistic arms. But he can't so much as breath as Spencer burrows into the other man's arms, smile soft on his face, up until those hands come up off Reid's hips, and wrap around his throat and for a minute Spencer fights back, nails digging viciously into flesh as he tries desperately to scream for help, but he can't get enough air... and then the veins in his eyes burst and they fill with blood that mixes with his tears as they stream down his face, and his lips begin to turn blue as he stops struggling and finally, finally... stops breathing altogether. 

And Hotch is trying to scream, and tears are pouring down his face, but there's no sound. He's forced to watch, mute and horrified, as the man who had embraced Spencer only minutes before wraps the cooling body in a sheet, drives him to a remote area in the Virginia countryside. Hotch wakes up, and sees Spencer's ghost in the corner, cocking his head and looking at him with a mix of pity and anguish, and every time Hotch bolts out of bed, reaching out for him, and right as his hand almost meets the figure, the ghost vanishes.

And Hotch is left completely alone.

Spencer's ex eventually confesses to the murder as a result of wanting to get with some random woman, and though he is sentenced to life in prison, Hotch wishes that he got worse. Or, better still, that Spencer had never dated him, that he was alive and safe.

The day after the trial, Hotch gets to work, steps into the elevator, and finds it already occupied by a familiar young agent, long blondish hair falling into hazel eyes. He shoots Hotch a smirk and says, "floor six, right?"

Hotch laughs, choked up, and says, "Using that IQ well, aren't you 187?"

Spencer merely smiles and hits the button. The ride is silent, but just as it dings to floor five, Hotch says, "I'm sorry I didn't do more."

Spencer cocks his head, and takes Hotch's hand in his own freezing palm. "You have nothing to apologize for."

The elevator hits the sixth floor, and when the doors open and Hotch steps out, he turns to see the elevator empty.


	2. Chapter 2

Emily thinks that the jet has been weirdly quiet since Spencer's death. She thought Paris had been quiet without his presence, but now, sitting across from Spencer's usual seat on the private plane, she just feels empty.

She didn't expect to come into work and find the desk across from her's empty. She didn't expect to be dragged out to a field in the countryside instead of what was supposed to be a filing day. She didn't expect to see Strauss standing there, looking almost broken. She didn't expect to step into the tent to see a sheet being dragged over the still body of one of her best friends, with handprints around his neck and blood crusted on his eyelashes, spreading runny streaks down his face. She didn't expect to collapse to her knees and take that cold, cold hand in her own and once again doubt the existence of a god, because what being could ever fathom snuffing out the life of Spencer Reid, a man who had dedicated his life to saving others, who had held her hand when she cried despite his own dislike of physical touch, who had given his affections, his body, his time to a man who turned around and not only squandered it for some unknown woman but snuffed out Spencer's life in the process?

She tries to read for a bit. But even the turning of the pages, her finger tracing under the words, every motion reminds her of him. Just as everything on the case did. When Morgan was putting together the geographic profile he broke down in the middle of the precinct. When Rossi turned through pages of the unsub's journal his hands shook. When Garcia gave them statistics on arsonists, she did it through tears. Whenever JJ tried to tell a story about Henry, she would have to pause to take deep breaths and close her eyes. When Hotch delivered the profile, he would pause in the places Spencer would normally jump in, or add his thoughts.

And now, as Emily tried to do some reading on the flight home, she found she couldn't focus on the words. It garbled together, going from comprehensive dialogue and prose to unintelligible jargon that not even the best of the FBI would be able to make sense of.

That not even Spencer could make sense of.

Emily doesn't realize that she's crying until her tears land on the page, leaving a saline stain that smudges the words. She closes the book with a snap and buries her head in her hands, trying to muffle her cries as best as she can as to not wake any of her sleeping team members. A moment later, she feels a cold hand rest on her shoulders and reaches up, batting it away (albeit it rather weakly) and mumbling, "not now JJ."

"Then I suppose it's a good thing I'm not JJ," a voice next to her says, and her head shoots up.

Sitting in the seat next to her, a soft and sympathetic smile on his face is Spencer.

"Is everything alright?" he says quietly, and Emily can only laugh.

"No, everything is not alright. You're dead, and the bastard who killed you is still alive, and I know he's in prison but it's just not _fair-_ " she cuts herself off, and swallows down the guilt she feels close up her throat. "But of course you would know that." Spencer sighs and rubs his thumb in soft circles on her shoulder. He's dressed in the same clothes they found him, she realizes. Soft cardigan, old t-shirt, worn jeans, mismatched socks, converse. It's such a Spencer type of look that she can't help but smile. "Didn't feel like wearing suit and tie, huh?"

Spencer laughs softly. "Well, I didn't have much of a choice in the matter, but if I did I still think I'd be wearing this."

Emily thinks she feels some of the weight come off her shoulder at the familiar sound, and she reaches up and, hand shaking, rests her own on Spencer's. It's freezing cold. "What are you doing back here anyway? Shouldn't you have moved on?"

Spencer merely shrugs, moving his hand to interlock their fingers and smiling to himself. "Not yet. There's still so much for me left to do, including helping my family. You deserve to move on just as much as I do. Besides..." his expression darkens, and maybe it's the shadows playing tricks on her eyes but she thinks the sclera of his eyes turn red, "I don't like leaving cases unfinished."

Emily feels a wicked grin spread across her face at the words. "I completely understand." She leans over to lean her head on Spencer's freezing shoulder, then adds, "I'm surprised you're being this..."

"clingy?" he finishes for her, and she chuckles.

"Touchy-feely was what I was going for."

"The dead don't have to worry about germs."

She barks out a laugh, and quickly covers her mouth, turning to make sure none of her coworkers heard her, then turns back to Spencer, who smiles at her, then leans in and gives her a tight hug. SHe closes her eyes and leans into it until she feels him let go, and when she opens her eyes again, the seat is empty.

But her book is open, to a particular passage;

"That's the secret. If you always make sure you're exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people, then you won't care if you die tomorrow."

And the last of the weight drifts off her shoulders as she picks up the book and continues from where she left off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage that Emily reads at the end is from Carol Rifka Brunt's _Tell the Wolves I'm Home_ , which is phenomenal by the way.


End file.
